I'm in Rishikesh, settled for a while. Taking yoga courses and classical vocal lessons. I think this will be the last post of its kind, but it's a good one. I'm going to New Zealand on March 10th. I will write later with some synthesizing analysis (oxymoron?) of my Indian HKE experiences. Already I've added some pages in the sidebar. ExcerptsA. Ganges River Cleanup: After walking past the piles of plastic enough times, I decided to honor the holy river by just picking it up. I organized a cleanup day, and was joined by curious Indians. Recycling projects are in the works.
B. "I look at you and I see the beauty of the light of music": my love affair with a 76 year-old master of music.
C. Our Bodies, Our Friends: Are your mind and body kind to each other?
D. An Accident: One worker at the yoga ashram, Siddhartha, witnessed an accident on the road and tried his hardest to help the man and his family. We collected some money for the doctor fees and visited the man's home. He is either going to die or be paralyzed forever.
E. The Mystical Compassionate Experience: An analysis of the act of giving as a transcendental experience.
rishikesh, from outside my room at the ashram
Uttam Das' grandson Aman trying his best at 'Hot Cross Buns'
the mind and the body, the teacher and the student, the water and the sand, the branch and the rootElaborationsA. Ganges River Cleanup: Every day I walked along the Ganges to my music lesson, and eventually I just 'couldn't say nothing'. Many Indian tourists walk on that stretch, on a mini-pilgrimage to worship the river. Some take out a wreath of strung flowers, say a prayer, and drop it into the river, followed with the plastic bag it came in. Or they pour a milk libation and then throw the plastic milk bag into the wind. One sunny day I came back and started picking up plastic. It was fun - wading in the water, rinsing the sand out of the bags. I knew I would get attention, and when the curious Indians stopped I would talk with them - about how long plastic stays; about how we can recycle; about how we must care for this land that belongs to all of us, and to Hindus is like the floor of a temple.
Then I got more organized. I bought big empty potato sacks. I found out there was an ashram nearby that collected plastic and delivered it to Delhi for recycling. I was there every day. I even told all the foreigner yoga students, and planned a big cleanup day when they could come (even offered to pay for their breakfasts and tea/coffee). It was a Sunday, when many Indian tourists would come to do worship or take a bath in the Ganges.
That Sunday no yoga students showed up. One Taiwanese woman, Monica, with a wonderful big heart, came and helped. But throughout the day I was there, and about a dozen Indians stopped and helped for a bit. It was really incredible - they just stopped going somewhere and started picking up plastic. I talked to quite a few Indians - perhaps the more important awareness-raising that makes waves of difference. We filled five potato sacks.
The best was the kids. They wandered over and started helping. It was a game, and we were the young kids, playing in the sun and water, that didn't know any better. Shiv Kumar and Mohit (who can't go to school because his family is too poor), both ten years old, helped all day and came back the next. I'll never forget the revelation I saw in Mohit's eyes when he understood that 'hum isse dusre chiz banaenge' - 'we can make new things out of this'. And they did it all with innocence and sincerity. Afterwards they were surprised when I bought them each a kg of chikkus as a thank you.
In terms of systemic change, I've gotten to talk to many Indian passers-by, and I know that the image of a white guy picking up their plastic from their holy river is something they'll remember. Talking with Jitendra Kumar, who runs the recycling station, I'm learning that all the infrastructure is in place for city-wide recycling, but it's that first spark of I-can-make-a-difference that's missing. I'm having trouble getting hold of the Municipal Chairman, who's work day starts at 11am and ends at 1pm. Even at the yoga ashram, 50 feet uphill from where I was cleaning, the workers were dumping trash and plastic onto a big pile in the sand.
I've found a real partner in Siddhartha, who gives talks at the ashram and has studied ancient sanskrit texts for 15 years. His life is dedicated to service. He tells me what the ancient seers would have to say, as we wander and wade around picking up plastic. Together we're going to get the ashram to set up a recycling system (Jitendra already drives by every day on pickup runs). And we can talk to other hotels, ashrams, and shops to spread the word.
Mohit, Pratap, and Shiv Kumar, playing in the river with me
90 degrees to the left, the ashram's permanent beach dumpsterB. "The Beauty of the Light of Music":
You see this tiny old man, crouching under a large painting of a holy man. The painting is of Swami Sivananda, known throughout the world, and the tiny man painted it 15 years ago when he was Swami Sivananda's personal musician. The tiny man, Mr. Uttam Das, is now 76 years old; he has dedicated his life to music and art. He plays the tabla and the ancient packwaj; he plays the harp-like santoor and its almost-extinct relative the sarobandar; he sings and paints. He is of the generation of musicians that don't belong to this world any more. He's stopped teaching; now he rattles around his room upstairs while his four children, and a few grandchildren, teach and practice all types of Indian classical music downstairs. Through a string of coincidences and good luck, I came to be his student, learning classical singing. There is no Western equivalent to the Indian relationship of teacher and student.
Every day I come and sit with him for two hours. Usually he talks about music - about the pure spiritual music, Naad, that can't be heard, about depths and subtleties I have only glimpsed. We drink chai, he listens to me sing, he eats his lunch ('just a formality'). He gives me some new material, most of the time. I go buy him cigarettes, or an umbrella.
Traditionally tabla players, and all classical musicians, spend years learning vocal music. It is considered the basis of all the other music in India. So I'm learning singing, but with a rhythmic perspective. Uttam Das always talks of the importance of 'mathematics and balance' in music. I agree.
I try to be the best student I can, and consequently learn very quickly. He's proud of me, but sometimes seems conflicted that I'm so eager and able to bypass the traditional learning style (which could take 10-15 years). One time he yelled at me, saying, "You eat music like a monkey!". But he likes showing me off to visitors, throwing new challenges at me to impress them (like clapping out a 15-beat cycle while reciting it twice in 7.5 beats and then four times as fast, twice).
But the best times are when we play together. He may spontaneously decide to play backup drums to my singing (testing my hold on the rhythms), or have me play tabla while he picks up the santoor or sarobandar. Sometimes he has me come in the evening, just to play together, and this is when the real magic happened. I'm permitted to witness, and take part in, this ancient musician's departure to the world of music. For him it is a familiar and comforting world, filled with melodies he loves sweetly. He becomes half wise master and half innocent child, and a serene smile appears under his cheerful eyes.
I feel grateful just to occassionally see this transformation. But I also know that I help bring it about. The best thing you can give a musician is someone to make music for. And not only am I a willing listener, but I play tabla for him, and thus intimately participate, offering what I can.
Uttam Das is starting to get old. His health is declining, and his musical skills and memory are inevitable going as well. I feel that one reason he enjoys teaching me so much is that I represent the continuation of the music, the music with which he has unified his life. When faced with decline and death, coupling it with its complementary creation and life can make it all make sense.
Usually I don't make it out of the house without stopping downstairs to play with Uttam Das' 28 year-old son, Pankaj. He's one of those really incredible tabla players, and we're real pals now. I don't have the money for lessons, but we usually end up playing anyway, exchanging compositions or playing games (like simultaneously playing a four-beat and five-beat composition that land on the one together). Pankaj appreciates someone who, while maybe 1/20th the player he is, understands the subtleties, and has seen so much music, in India and elsewhere. Recently I showed him pictures and music of the other world drumming I know - Cuban bata, Japanese taiko, West African djembe, Balinese Gamelan. I made him a CD, and, at his insisting, also included Usher's 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah'.
music
Pankaj teachingC. Our Bodies, Our Friends:I'm taking an intensive Iyengar yoga course at the Omkarananda Yoga Ashram. Yoga is many things, but in its physical practice it is basically a way of exploring your self (body, mind, intellect, unconscious, etc) via poses. It is a methodical and ancient way of developing, expanding, and spreading awareness throughout your body. Yoga helps you realize the many connections within your body, mind, and beyond. It is a simple way of learning to listen to the messages you continually recieve from within.
For example, when we sit we can turn our feet out in a V, or make them parallel. If they turn out, then the knees move apart, tail bone curves in, spine sinks, shoulders close, lungs shrink, and we soon feel tired and heavy. If the feet are kept parallel, the thighs move together, tailbone moves down, spine lengthens, shoulders open, lungs expand, and we feel refreshed and light. Maybe we even smile, because our mind has made our body happy, and our body is returning the favor.
So what is the relationship between your mind and body? Is the mind the boss and the body the employee? Is the mind the driver and the body the vehicle? Is the mind the father and the body the son? Is one the teacher and one the student? If your body and mind are going to be together your whole life, why not help them become friends?
Downward-facing Dog Pose, with straight backs
Tortoise Pose, where you get to go insideD. An Accident:
This is a sad story that demonstrates several ordinary aspects of Indian life and kind action.
One early morning Siddhartha, who lectures on Indian philosophy in the ashram, watched an old nightwatchman he knew, Mr. Ranit Bahadur, get hit by a truck. The truck didn't stop, presumably because the driver was afraid of getting in trouble, although it was a military truck and the military probably has insurance. Ranit was bleeding from his head, and needed to go to the hospital. Siddhartha tried to stop some rickshaws, but none stopped, as no one wanted to take on the responsibility. Siddhartha drove his scooter to one police stand, but no one was there. He went to another, and the officers were slow to wake up and get moving. Finally they got to the man, stopped a rickshaw, and headed to a large government hospital. The hospital took them, but didn't have any stitches. So Siddhartha had to go out across the street to the medical shops to buy some. But they were all closed, as it was too early. Eventually, he could buy the stitches, for Rs. 20 ($0.50). Mr. Bahadur's head was stitched up, but he had lost a lot of fluid.
That day Siddhartha told us the story in yoga class (full of foreigners), and asked us to donate money for the family, which lives in a nearby village and has very little. The hospital charges would be insurmountable for them. Among the 30 of us, we collected Rs. 3000 ($2/person). I don't usually succumb to cynicism, but it really tore me up, watching these beourgoisie yuppies slipping their loose change into the box, knowing that yesterday they might've spent 20 times that to buy a shiny crystal whose magic healing powers they hoped would alleviate their constipation. The Rs. 3000 wasn't enough to cover any costs - the family would have to sell some land. It served only as a gesture demonstrating concern, which is worthy in itself only if it really is backed up with concern. And what I saw in the 'yogis' was some concern, but also self-centered guilt and fear.
I wanted to visit the family with Siddhartha. So we went, with another student Michaela from Austria, to their village. It was a long sad walk in the rain, on a muddy road surrounded by fields of intense green and thin yellow flowers. In the distance the blue-grey Himalayan foothills shot up from the plain and disappeared into the low grey-blue sheet of clouds. The family - a brother, a son, wives, six grandchildren - were quiet with tired faces. If Mr. Bahadur doesn't die, he will be paralyzed forever and bankrupt the family as they dutifully care for their elder. They accepted the money we brought. We didn't stay for long, just sat silently with them, using our eyes to connect and offer our humility and respect. From what I've experienced of death, I think it is best honored with humility and respect. When we left I said an emphatic 'Namaste' - a common Indian salutation, whose literal meaning is 'The god in me bows to the god in you.'
E. The Mystical Compassionate Experience:
There's this thing called the mystical experience. As far as I know, it's had a place in every human civilization, but is notoriously nebulous. It's almost defined by its indescribable-ness. It is an intensely personal experience, and refuses to fit into time, space, or language. Everyone who experiences it recognizes it as defying logic and language, and then usually proceeds to use logic and language to interpret it. There are books written, philosophies and religions created for this purpose. And there are methods and institutions established for helping other people to experience this mystical experience. Thus we have meditation techniques and mantras, showing us the door. And endless imagery to use to interpret what we find inside. But in the end, it is a spontaneous personal experience that transcends these teachings and vocabularies. No one can feel it for us. In the end we can only try and make ourselves more receptive, move closer to the edge and wait.
The only other generalization is that those that have had this experience describe it as a unitive one. We feel, and are, unified beyond our common experience of separateness. And this is a deeply fulfilling and meaningful experience.
As I really explore the essence of 'the act of helping', I'm seeing many parallels. Before we actually help there's a spark, of something, that results in us deciding to help. We're walking down the street, and spontaneously pick up a piece of garbage and put it in the trashbin. Everything follows the logic of this world (perceiving the trash, the muscles moving to bend over) except for that instantaneous spark of decision. Actually, I don't think it's a spark of decision; I think it's a spark, resulting in a decision. The spark is the experience of feeling connected, somehow, to this piece of trash and its fate, to the cleanliness of this road, to the society that created it, to the environment it lives in. Real selfless compassion doesn't make any sense at all, until you see yourself as connected to everything else - until you basically transcend your separateness and feel unified with the 'stuff you aren't'.
This spark usually happens spontaneously, surprises us as we're on our way to do or be something else. How open we are to acknowledge it - that's up to us. The magic words: willingness and surrender. If we do acknowledge it, and consequently act, the result is indeed felt as unifying and deeply fulfilling and meaningful.
It's interesting to look at the human creations that have developed around this transcendental experience of compassionate concern. We have values and morals describing appropriate action (yes, these are also very handy for societal crowd-control, but notice that we make a distinction between mindlessly acting 'as you would have done to you' and acting purely selflessly). We have institutions for helping - charities, hospitals, governments. From childhood we're taught to be altruistic, given many reasons and methods. In the end, though, it is a personal experience, and it is up to us. There will always be inconsiderate doctors and corrupt politicians, just as there will always be profound glances and heartwarming ticketcollectors. Connecting is a personal unifying experience that happens (and can happen) all the time, everywhere.
What I'm noticing is that this understanding of helping is self-reinforcing. The more I help, the more I feel connected, and the easier it is for me to step outside myself and help more. The result is that I spend more and more time acting compassionately, and more and more time identifying with things outside my self. I can personally testify that this is very fulfilling and meaningful.
